I have done a search here for the subject I have here. We go to Arizona in the winter and some of our state parks here and the water has a real bad taste. I was wondering if any one here has used a water softener and does it improve the taste of the water as well as softening the water? Any information would be appreciated.
Thanks
Harry

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Our first snowbird winter we stayed for a while in Terlingua outside Big Bend. I have no idea what the level of dissolved solids in the water was. It was cloudy, smelled horrible and tasted worse. I swear you could chew it. It turned our fixtures white in three weeks. Bottled water was about the same price as gas.

The next year we were in Gold Canyon, AZ. Being used to our pure Colorado well water, the AZ water was too hard for coffee, ice and drinking. We saw lots of snowbirds using the Flow-Pur. We ordered one and had it delivered to the park. It was like night and day.

We have used it extensively in Utah and Arizona for several years and highly recommend Flow-Pur.

We spent part or all of the winter in AZ for nine years. The water didn't taste bad but had a hardness of over 50 grains per gallon. 20 GPG is considered very hard and 50 GPG is worse. Our FlowPur softener had to be recharged every 10 days but did a great job. It kept the white deposits off the RV plumbing pipes and out of the faucet diffusers.

We used a charcoal filter cartridge in our whole house water filter and it helps a lot with any tastes in the water. The GE Smartwater housing costs about $25 at a hardware store and the hose fittings a few dollars more. The charcoal cartridges cost about $14 for a pack of two and last two or three months depending on water quality.

By the way our water here in CO comes from treated snow melt but is still hard when it gets to us - 20 GPG.

We need to install a softener on the house water but haven't done it yet. They are pretty expensive with the plumbing changes required in this house.